Wolf Who Loved Me (18 page)

“You have made your bed, Maddie,” he said quietly. “Now you must lie in it.” He reached out and pulled her to him by her shoulders, planted a wet kiss on her forehead, and strode from the room.

“Papa!” she called to his retreating back.

He stopped, turned on his heel, and looked back at her, a hopeful smile upon his face. “Yes, Maddie?” he said. He held out one hand to her. But Weston stood on her right. And he looked at her as though she’d hung the moon and the stars in the sky. Like his very future was hinged upon her actions. She’d jumped into this adventure with him with both feet. Now she assumed it was time to grab hold and enjoy the ride. She slid her hand into his and felt Weston grip it tightly. There was strength in his grasp unlike any she’d ever known.

“I love you, Papa,” she said softly. Her father lowered his chin quickly, avoided her eyes, and strode from the room. From the inn. From her future. From her life? Maybe.

Tears pricked at the backs of her lashes. A great heaving sob rose within her chest, threatening to steal her very breath. To steal her life. But before she could utter a sound, Wes scooped her up in his arms as though she weighed nothing and carried her back toward the staircase.

She clung to him like a rose clings to a trellis. She needed his support. But she didn’t know how to ask for it. When they reached their room, Wes slowly dropped her to her feet. He spun her around and began to remove her clothes. She was numb. She didn’t even care. Certainly, he couldn’t think they’d be intimate with all the turmoil that was going on within her.

“Shh…” he breathed. It was almost as though he could read her mind. “You’ll feel better after you rest.”

When he had her fully undressed, he pulled back the counterpane and tucked her beneath it. She felt cold. And empty. And alone. But then he slid in behind her and wrapped his strong arms around her, cocooning her in his warmth. The tears that threatened to fall finally did. The very ones she thought might cleave her into two pieces. They very well might have, had Wes not been there to hold her together.

Wes held Maddie close, long after she’d fallen asleep. Her father’s words echoed in his ears.
Love
won’t keep my daughter in slippers.
Wes hadn’t cared one whit about her dowry. All he cared about was her. But life as a penniless Hadley would be difficult for her, more so than it ever had been for him. He couldn’t ask that of her. She was his wife. He was responsible for making sure she had slippers and dresses and every luxury she’d ever possessed. He was sorely ill-prepared for such responsibility.

Some evil imp in the back of his mind said it would have been better for Maddie if he’d taken her father’s offer. Wes pushed the terrible thought away. For better or worse, Maddie had leapt out of the Yorkshire inn window and into his arms when she could have run to the safety of her father, and she could again have left with the duke this evening. But she’d sought Wes’ hand instead. She’d married him, and she was his, and that was all there was to it.

Somehow, some way, he’d find a way to provide anything she desired. It was the
how
that would drive him mad. There was no war being fought, no need for soldiers. And he couldn’t ever see himself as a country vicar. So he would have to go into trade of some sort. Actually earn a living. But he knew nothing of shipping or industry. The only things he was truly good at were gentlemanly pursuits. Racing, gambling, whoring…

Gambling. He could never make enough at the tables, and lady luck was fickle. The only true winners at gaming tables were the owners of the establishments. They made money regardless.

Wes pushed the thought away. Going into trade was one thing; being the proprietor of a gaming hell was something else. Still… he
did
know gambling. He
did
know gamblers. But he barely had two farthings to rub together. No one was going to hand him a gaming hall to operate… Maybe Dash would take pity on him. Loan him the necessary funds. If so, Wes would see that every pound was returned to his brother. And certainly Dash could understand providing for a privileged wife.

***

Maddie woke hours later to find herself lying on her side with her face pressed against a hard wall of… she gently pressed her fingertips against it… a hard wall of
man
. She blinked heavily, trying to remove the sleep from her eyes. The last thing she remembered was Wes taking off her clothes with such care and tucking her between the covers. She’d felt utterly bereft for a moment, and then he’d joined her. He’d wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

Wes had even gone so far as to tell her he’d go and get her father and bring him back to her if she wanted it. He was willing to give her back, he’d said, if she truly wanted it. But she didn’t want it. And she’d never been more certain of anything in her life. She wanted Weston Hadley. She wanted to be Lady Madeline Hadley.

The moonlight streamed through the window, casting his face in shadow. His scar was pressed against his pillow, and he looked almost normal in this light. Not that she minded his scar. It was part of him, after all. And she liked him just fine. He was quite handsome lying there with his mouth slightly parted, soft snores erupting from between his lips.

Maddie moved back a couple of inches and smiled as Wes instinctively reached for her, trying to draw her back toward him without even waking. Who would have ever thought that a man who looked so imposing could be so warm? So prone to holding her close?

Maddie took a moment to study him there in the moonlight. His broad shoulders looked perfectly wide enough to shoulder her burdens. She very nearly scoffed. She’d barely met the man. He’d married her and taken her innocence, all in a span of no more than a few days. However, it was no more than she’d have expected from any other marriage her father would have arranged. She’d have had a few outings with the gentleman, been seen in public a few times with her intended, and then marriage would have taken place. And the bedding.

Goodness, the bedding. She couldn’t get the thought of that out of her head. He’d said he wanted to take his time, but if he’d taken any more time, she wasn’t certain she’d have been able to stand it. She’d have melted into a big puddle of… something. Why had no one ever told her it would be like that? Her mother had died when Maddie was much too young to discuss such things. And proper ladies didn’t discuss bedchamber activities. It had come as a complete surprise how much she’d enjoyed it. There should be a book. A book all girls were given so they’d have a clue about what to expect in the bedchamber.

He’d taken her nipple into his mouth, and the fire had shot straight to her belly. The very thought of it now made a pulse beat between her legs. Nice girls didn’t think of such things, did they? She’d be like Lucy Reed. And that was deplorable. Maddie inhaled deeply and tried to shove the thoughts away. But all she could think of was the feel of him inside her. The feelings of having him surround her and be
in
her at the same time. She reached out a tentative hand and touched the flat hardness that was his nipple. He groaned, which made her jerk her hand back. But he settled again, and she reached out to touch him. It couldn’t hurt to explore his body while he slept, could it?

His nipple responded to her touch, growing hard beneath her fingertip. She wondered if it felt the same to him to have his touched. She’d never know, because she’d never have the courage to ask him. He’d think her disgraceful.

Maddie let her fingers trail through the light dusting of hair on his chest, luxuriating in the scratchy lightness of it. Her fingertips trailed down toward his stomach, and the muscles there tightened almost imperceptibly. “Wes,” she whispered. He didn’t respond, and his breaths were still even and slow.

His abdomen was soft in sleep, but she’d felt the iron cords that hid beneath the surface. She gently scratched the skin of his stomach with her fingertips. He let out a quick breath. Maddie looked up at him and noted his closed eyes and his relaxed countenance. Her fingertips trailed even lower. She couldn’t see it, because it was too dark, but she was supremely curious about that part of him he’d put inside her. The part of him that connected them. What did it look like? If he was sleeping, perhaps she could feel it. Maddie let her fingers trail lower, holding her breath as she explored.

“Maddie,” he growled. She nearly jumped from her skin when he spoke. His arms closed tightly around her as he hugged her to him. She raised her hand from where it had been wandering down his body, suddenly overwhelmed by the shame of her exploration.

“Wes,” she whispered.

“What?” he whispered back. But his chest rumbled beneath her ear as though he withheld laughter. What on earth did the cad have to laugh about?

“Are you awake?”

“No,” he whispered heartily.

“You are too.”

“If I go back to sleep, will you go back to what you were doing?”

Heat crept up her face. Thank goodness it was dark. She must be flushed scarlet by now. “I don’t know what you’re referring to,” she clipped out.

Wes very gently took her hand in his and gave it a gentle tug toward the lower half of his body. He grunted as though in pain but he placed her hand very firmly on that part of him she’d been aching to find. He pulled his hand back and left her fingers there. She could have jerked them back up to a respectable place. But she was too curious. Heaven help her, she wanted to touch it.

“I’m referring to the fact you were groping for my manhood while I slept, you naughty lady,” he said, his voice rough and gravely. “If you wanted to see it, you only needed to ask.”

See it? Goodness, she’d never be able to
look
at it. But her fingertips still rested upon it.

“I dare you,” he whispered in her ear, his hot breath stealing across the shell of it just before he sucked her earlobe into his mouth and gave it a gentle, playful bite. Then he moved back and lay there, his body relaxed beside her. But his abdomen was no longer soft. It was hard. Rigid as a board. And so was his manhood, where her fingertips still rested. She gently probed his length. “There’s my girl,” he rumbled from beside her, encouraging her as she tested the length of him.

All things considered, she couldn’t imagine how on earth he’d gotten that inside her. It was much bigger than she’d thought it was. Her fingers slid along his skin. It was like steel encased in warm velvet. How on earth did he walk around with that all the time?

“God, what you do to me,” he groaned, as her fingertips traced around the tip. His hand took hers and wrapped it around him. “Like that,” he encouraged. Then he went back to lying still as a board.

“Like this?” she whispered as she squeezed him.

“Good God,” he groaned as he bent his head and nipped lightly at her shoulder. “I never thought you’d be so courageous.”

“This is courageous?” she asked, liking the way he arched into her hand, as though he couldn’t get close enough to her.

“Very,” he growled as he licked a slow path across her shoulder. He reached down and pulled her hand away from him. “But I’ll have to ask you to stop.”

“Stop?” she whispered.

“Yes,” he whispered back as he rolled her to lie flat and covered her with his body. He looked down at her from where he rested on his hands. “Cease. Desist. Knock it off.” He chuckled lightly, just before he lowered his head and touched his lips to hers. “I can’t have you because you’ll be sore,” he growled at her. “Yet you insist on tormenting me.”

Sore? She wasn’t sore.

“I’ve been lying here smelling you for hours. Feeling you beside me. But I can’t have you.” He lifted his body several inches and slid down a bit, until his head hovered above her breasts. “When I close my eyes, I dream about you. When I open my eyes, I see you beside me. When I reach out, I can touch you. It’s all I’ve ever dreamed of.”

Maddie’s heart thumped like mad within her chest. “Will you do that thing you did before?”

“What thing?” he asked, as he raised his head, drawing his gaze from her exposed breasts to look into her face. “Tell me you want me,” he encouraged.

He looked like he needed to hear it. “I want you,” she admitted. She wanted him with a want unlike any she’d ever experienced. She wanted him to ease her pain. She wanted him to ease the ache within her.

Finally, he captured her nipple in his mouth. The feeling of it shot straight to the pit of her stomach. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said quietly.

“You won’t.” For some reason, she believed with all she was that he wouldn’t hurt her on purpose.

“I want to take my time and make love to my wife.”

His wife. Goodness, she was his wife. In every sense of the word. Wes wiggled his hips until he was settled firmly between her thighs. Then he slipped lower, licking a fiery trail down her stomach, his hands skimming down her sides as he went.

“What are you doing?” she asked, as he went lower and lower. Then his head dipped down between her thighs. She tried to close her legs and push him away. But then his tongue touched her. It touched her in a way she’d never expected. She couldn’t contain her gasp as he found that pulse point that had been pounding ever since she’d touched his manhood. Ever since she’d woken to find him beside her. She reached down, threading her hands into his hair, ready to push him away. What he was doing was scandalous, wasn’t it? It certainly wasn’t normal. But then she stopped caring about propriety when he slid a finger inside her and worked at that pounding pulse-point with his tongue.

“Does that hurt?” he asked, quickly raising his head as he began to move his finger within her.

He chuckled when she didn’t respond and just thrashed her head on the pillow as she shoved him back down where she wanted him. “Guess not,” he laughed as he went back to his ministrations. He took her higher than he’d taken her earlier in the day. That coupling had been sweet and soft. And she’d shattered at the end of it all. But this… this was different. He was moving something inside her, like pieces of a puzzle that needed to be lined up before one could win. And winning was close. So close. It built within her, slowly, then more quickly. Then she toppled over that precipice. He stayed with her, wringing every last bit of pleasure from her, before he wiped his face on the counterpane and climbed up her, then smiled down into her eyes.

“Oh, my goodness,” was all she could breathe as she swiped an arm across her forehead. Goodness, she was sweating. Ladies didn’t sweat. Ever. But she was too tired to care.

Wes settled his hips between her thighs once again and pressed at her center. She felt like a limp doll, just waiting to be rearranged for his pleasure. Her muscles were weak and placid, but when he surged inside her with such great care, she somehow found the strength to wrap her legs around his hips. And within moments, he was stoking that fire once again. He was warming her more and more and more. And she was rising to meet him. Then he tensed above her and grunted. “Come with me, Maddie,” he urged.

His hand stole back down to her heat and stroked across that pleasure point he’d worked so masterfully before. When he shuddered above her, she joined him. He spilled himself inside her as her walls convulsed around him. They finished together. So close. He held her close to him as he rolled to the side, pulling her atop him. “Dear God,” he groaned.

Maddie could barely catch her breath. But she knew she was sticking to him. His sweat or hers, it was still sweat. And she didn’t care. Goodness, she didn’t care. She giggled.

“What’s amusing?” he asked, his voice rich and strong, even though his breaths were still ragged.

“Nothing,” she replied, settling her head against his chest, her body nestled snugly beneath his arm.

“Hmm,” he grunted as his body relaxed beneath her. “I can’t believe you woke me from a sound sleep just to have your way with me.”

“Surely you’re not complaining.”

He hugged her tightly and kissed the top of her head. “Never, but you need your rest, darling, and so do I. We have a long day ahead of us tomorr…” His words faded off as he fell asleep. Maddie followed him as easily into sleep as she had followed him into pleasure only moments before.